Rise Up

It’s been two weeks since New York Times critic Ken Johnson penned his review of Michelle Grabner’s show at James Cohan and debate over whether he used sexist language to dismiss it still rages on. A few responses to the responses on the responses.

Like many of Suzanne Lacy’s works, tomorrow’s performance—Creative Time’s largest undertaking to date—aims to get widespread attention on the issues of a local marginalized community. “Between the Door and the Street” enlists around 350 activists, mostly female, to stage small conversations on city stoops about issues of class and labor inequality. So it seems fitting that the project has already opened a discussion about a perennial activist problem: volunteers want to get paid.

A great moment in Vine has occurred. Last night we went to famed filmmaker Jonas Mekas’ opening at Microscope Gallery and asked him to shoot his first Vine ever for us. Most Vines look like Jonas Mekas movies to begin with, so we figured why not go to the source? Best moment not caught on Vine: watching Mekas’s eyes light up as he learned what Vine is and what he could do with it.

This year, the art world became more dysfunctional than usual. As such, we talked about social injustice, power struggles, and uneven distribution of wealth seemingly endlessly. Who knows if it helped, but writing these ten posts made us feel just a little bit better.

A lot of blood, sweat, and queers went into this year’s Fire Island Artist Residency (FIAR), the only residency in the country devoted exclusively to queer artists. While FIAR’s mission runs the risk of self-marginalization, it seems to have opened up an essential—not inherently essentializing—space for this year’s residents (Jade Yumang, Kris Grey, Nicolaus Chaffin, R.E.H. Gordon, and Brendan Fernandes). As Nicolaus Chaffin told AFC, “the importance of it all has been the ability to not use facets of our work to address and explain our positions, but rather just make the work, let the work exist.”

“It would be awesome if [prominent artist residency] Skowhegan was here, and just for homos!” Fire Island Artist Residency (FIAR) co-founder Chris Bogia told AFC recently, recalling his initial reaction to Fire Island. It was with this impetus that Bogia and co-founder Evan Garza founded FIAR, the only artist residency in the country devoted exclusively to queer artists. Bogia quickly added, “But I think that Fire Island Artist Residency is becoming something wholly unto itself, which is really exciting.”

I guess we know why Whitney Director Adam D. Weinberg was willing to say the museum had no intention “to respond one way or the other” about Sotheby’s art handler lockout. This morning we received a tip that the Whitney is planning an auction through Sotheby’s to fund the construction of their new building.

While we support the museum’s construction efforts, we find the use of Sotheby’s unacceptable and are asking artists to refuse the Whitney’s requests for donations. The museum doesn’t have to use Sotheby’s, a company bent on exploiting its workers. It’s doing so because no one’s made it clear to them that they shouldn’t.

Tonight at 6 PM, Sotheby’s art handlers will protest outside of MoMA. Why protest? Because they’ve been locked out of their jobs for 8 months, while Sotheby’s continues to prolong contract negotiations. After multiple concessions and attempts to compromise, the teamsters maintain the request that Sotheby’s continues to hire union workers when its current staff retires.

Sotheby's art handlers want MoMA to sever ties with the auction house, and they have good reason: MoMA has made millions at Sotheby's during the art handler lockout. In November, MoMA auctioned off two paintings by Rufino Tamayo, a sale which amassed over three million dollars for MoMA's acquisition fund.